The Morning After The Life Before
by Prince Nightingale
Summary: Peter braves reality; Tinkerbell hopelessly follows. Warning: Strong Language


**So this is a hypothetical Peter Pan scenario, in which Peter eventually decided to return to the real world and grow up…in America, just for the sake of my story. Tinkerbell, being enamored by and ever-faithful to Peter, sacrificed her faerie powers and assumed human form in order to remain his companion and look out for him forever and ever…**

**I have gone by the Disney version in terms of character appearances, but this fic is compatible with any version or just the Peter Pan story in general.**

It was 6:20 AM, and a nauseous plum sky curdled restlessly over JFK International Airport in New York City. Cybel the waitress was working her early shifts at Costa on the third floor, at which point her duties were at the sink. Back bent, a perpetual spray spat pan grub at her nipples as her leathery Norwegian hands scrubbed up stubborn nuggets of grime. But a drowned, tuneful Bon Jovi played, and her heart dribbled steadily though the grooves of the draining board. She was not unhappy. Just alone. She glanced up to change the track, and saw Tinkerbell.

The young hostess was perched prone on the table furthest towards the glass windows overlooking the runways, her back to Cybel. Her little figure was dead straight, her butt slipping out of her tightly fastened waist like a little grey tear. Cybel blanched at that large, ash golden dolly head with its pony tail bounding portentously out at the back. Tinkerbell was renowned and hated. She was surly and arrogant; she wasn't interested in having friends. Cybel peered at the reflection in the glass pane beyond the girl. A furious intensity haunted those eyes. That soft, puerile face was plastered hard with foundation, and a pair of sleek black eyebrows had been cut into her brow – a picture of bleak professionalism. Under that freshly painted doll gaze, was something worn out from heartache and early mornings and hours of air travel. The cappuccino between her fingers was as of yet, untouched.

Winter mornings at JFK International were as bitter as the coffee; the air was tough and unripe, and the swollen lights had a lemony, medicinal flavor. Outside, the wounded sky throbbed as the latest raging, wheezing metal albatross plunged though the cloud and swooped into a landing. Tink gazed up into the hole it had torn, hoping to see a star, but knowing that stars only came in stingy stipples. It was barely worth it.

Memories ran wild and ragged in her head. These days, Tink's own memory failed her. Pictures of wild canopies and mottled earthy undergrowth had long since lost their fragrance. That was Neverland. A dream that had hit her and ran, leaving her feeling like she'd been kicked in the head.

By 7:00 AM, the atmosphere bubbled a little in the morning haze, as various staff and passengers drizzled in to grab a bite before take-off. Six was a good time to fly. Planes to Paris, Athens and Rome would rip the seams of the soiled cloud and wail into the white virgin light; mid morning they'd land in a bath of musty Mediterranean gold, and the passengers would sip the air like some exotic drink and crunch brilliantly over the shingly expanse, infused with a sense of adventure.

But for Tinkerbell, it was methodical. The sun was seething and weighty; it grilled the white wing metal as the planes roared in agony, and chased her in and out of airports. By this time her head had lolled forward, her little fingers picked at her empty coffee cup, and she nibbled her scrawny straw between her teeth. Cybel sighed and approached.

"Can I take that, hun?"

Tinkerbell snapped her head up, ferociously eyeing the scrawny black hair singed into straw in a 5 minute straightening job, and the long lank stains on the apron, and the wiry little blisters all over the nut brown hands. She blinked coldly at Cybel, straw hanging out of her mouth. Cybel delved into her pocket and offered her a cigarette. Tink glanced over her shoulder then snatched it, casting her eyes down as she set about lighting it diligently. Cybel didn't wait for a thankyou, and strolled away with the coffee cup.

"Heyy…sugarbutt, plane spotting again?"

Tink turned briskly to find herself staring into the sparkly eyes of Peter, and her freshly plastered face broke into a tender smile.

The world had roasted Peter in its greasy corruption, and he had come out beautifully. Thick ropes of muscle had seized his once lithe little limbs, and his benevolent doll face had crisped with sharp, brazen chasms. The spring gleam is his lively eyes had withered into something sultry. He was handsome; he swaggered heavily, wielding his confidence like a bludgeon, and passers-by swung humbly out of the way. His broad shoulders served as a hanger for his trench coat as he strode purposefully from one arrangement to the next. His composure however, did little to mask his monstrous strength. He was a blood-hungry athlete who could sprint to the end of the world and back, drumming his magnificent weight all over the earth. And beneath that trenchcoat and fedora was a lot of hot breath, hot thoughts ushering him to hotter places, a subway of black cars packed with deadly diamond secrets and smoke, all closed up from Tink.

Accompanying the young man were two others; clean shaven, attractive men with well chiseled faces that had no doubt been dragged through a lot of different airs; bloody and ensemed; Mediterranean and Caribbean. A pretty little woman with a lot of dark hair hung off the one she was currently fucking. The three retired to a nearby table, the supplemented male glancing sincerely at Peter over his girl's tits.

Peter gave Tink's waist a brief caress before taking a seat.

"My next plane's the 10:55 to Uruguay." Tink began. "I've got a while."

"Hmm. Pity. I haven't."

"Time for coffee?"

"You want another coffee, Tink?"

She paused, then shook her head.

"Then I'll cut to the chase." His leaned in and nestled his dark furry head beneath his arms, eyes glinting out. "The boys need another transfer… Cuba to San Fran…." His lips emerged from his nest of arms to caper sensually around a couple of words: "Pixie dust."

"How much?"

"Bout 50 kilos." The corner of his mouth twitched and he added surreptitiously, "think you can handle it?"

Tink squirmed, rubbed her cakey lipstick deeper into the crevices of her lips, and smiled hard. "Hmm, I dunno. Do you think I can handle it?"

"Not in a million."

Tink leaned in. "So is that what you really think of me, Peter? Tell me what you think of me." Her breasts gleamed at him, small, pert and pushed together, painfully ripe.

Peter shook his head chuckling. He gazed out over the runways, chest slackening felinely over the chair. Beyond him the 7:20 to Valencia shot off with a pained shriek, sailing along his vast, sandy torso, before disappearing completely. Her eager little tits were a mile off, blubbering over the coffee stains on the other side of the table. "Like I said, not in a million."

He delved into his pocket and retrieved a slip of paper, its format with which Tink was familiar enough. "Now it's up to you to prove me wrong. I'd love to stay sugarbutt but I gotta see a man about an impending assault."

"How's work?" She said weakly. That was something he enjoyed talking about.

Peter grinned. "Tink, they've aimed a cash cannon at me. They shoot me all over the world with it. They reload. They shoot me again. His lips mutely sculpted the word: 'Bang', and he slowly motioned a gun with his hands and shot her three times, then he turned it round and shot himself.

"And how's Tina?"

"Who?"

"Your girlfriend."

Peter laughed. "Man that was months ago, and she wasn't my girlfriend."

"Well what would you call her?"

Peter Shrugged. "Friend."

"You slept with her…"

"Good friend."

"So who's it now?"

Peter chuckled. "You make it sound like one of your checkout queues. Uh, I dunno, there's been a few more I guess. Met a nice one in Florida."

"When was that?"

"Uh, couple months ago? And…there've been the usual others, closer to home. The domestics, you know? Dolly, Rach, Suki… Kitty when I'm in that part of town. Geez does it matter? You know what girls are like, Tink."

Tink nodded. She wasn't going to tell him about love. Love was hard like a rock and it got stuck places, like in her throat or under her tongue. It made her clumsy and disorientated when it rolled around in her head, because it was lumpy and full of dents, and it didn't belong in whatever gap she tried to jam it into here in this roaring world she'd found herself in.

"I don't work on the checkouts. I'm an air hostess."

"Yeah I know." He muttered with little interest as he rolled a cigarette. Smoking on the premises was against the rules, but for Peter, the girls would look the other way.

"You shouldn't smoke. You'll die."

Peter sniggered. "So you stubbed that fag out under the table to make pretty patterns in the chewing gum?"

She watched, her heart seething, as he put the cigarette to his lips and welcomed filth into his regal young lungs. She thought about when he had drunk the stars, thrashing the night air in and out of him like the commander of the universe. And now, a scrawny tendril of fag smoke slithered languidly out of his nostril.

This was disposable time to Peter….but to Tink, she had seized it with her long famished fingers, cut up her tired eyes with sharp black lines, and now she was here – shelved on the third floor from 6 o'clock in the morning. Peter was sucking the life out of her.

Furious, she delved under her uniform and seized her weapon. She hadn't wanted to resort to this. Squinting through the glass of salt and pepper, she aimed for those sagging lips, and fired.

"Ow! Geez, what was that?"

He turned to Tink, whose eyes were burning softly, little nests of love and malice. He turned away and surveyed the room with a sudden wariness. Just when he had satisfied himself that no one's attention had been drawn, she snarled and fired again.

"Ah! Would you – what the hell is that thing?"

"A Millions gun." She ghosted a fingertip over the 'made in china' on the sunny plastic trigger. "Some kid left it on the plane."

"What the fuck are Millions?"

"Candy."

He quirked an eyebrow. "And you carry that around?"

Tink smirked. "In my stockings."

Peter shook his head with remote amusement and peered around. Silence struck, and hung around for a while, like the stale, inevitable smell of the airport. Peter murmured, "I'm leaving after this cigarette."

"Why?"

"Because there's shit needs doing, I told you. Look it's 50 kilos and you've gotta meet this guy called Fran…"

"What shit needs doing? Tell me all about it."

"Sorry Tink, it's under the radar stuff I'm talking about."

"Since when did we keep secrets?"

"Since I passed the age of ten."

Tink's head raged back as if pistol-whipped. She stared at the debased ceiling tiles and thought about smashing through them, and then the glass roof, and then all the shitty purple smog until she got to the stars. She looked back down to see Peter, just as arrogant and inadequate as he'd been a few seconds before, and fired another Million.

"Ah! For fu- look are you gonna take the job or not?"

"I don't see why you won't tell me about your day. You know I have no one to tell."

"Okay, whatever. Imma go talk to a guy about roughin up a little Irish snake. Then imma go by Ziggler's and pick up some whore for the boss. If Ziggler gives me shit again I'll put his head through the wall, if I can fit it into my schedule that is. Then it's back through town to guard the compound for the eighth night running. I swear Valmont needs to be on something for his paranoia."

Tink watched his golden skin twitch in discomfort. "Who's the Irishman?"

Peter glowered absently through Tink's head, to whatever might have been behind it. After a little reluctance, the name popped out of him sharply. "Finbar."

"Finn?" Finn, the faintly queasy, sardonic redheaded Irish American with a particularly low brow sense of humor, but a sense of humor nonetheless. She'd served him in the first class department once on a flight to Paris, and he'd teased her gently and dealt a few default compliments, and every once in a while his sparkly eyes would lose interest in the shifts and grunts of his shadowy coworkers, and he'd tip his seat right back and dip his head in this scrawny, shallow interest he had in her that strung behind the purpose of his flight. Then some suited beefcake would swing him back up again and demand he stop staring at the little blonde broad and pay attention. Tink didn't particularly care for Finn, but he was iconic; he gleamed in her mind coldly.

Peter twiddled his cigarette, eyes to the table. "Yeah." He pronounced, loud and brash. Maybe he'd expected the reply to be dynamic and self-assured, to bounce off the wood and hit Tink. But it fell and cracked on the table wickedly. Tink gazed despondently at where it had fallen, and thought of Finbar sitting in smoke in some murky mottle on a slice of town, his white blazer contaminated into a disappointing sub-white, boxed in with a load of other spurious junkies like woodlice under a rock.

"What did he do?"

What did it matter? It wasn't important. It was sickeningly unimportant, just like Finn and his faded blazer that wasn't as white as the Neverland Cloud, and Ziggler's band of smokey whores who despite their beauty, could never be special. They resided in no paradise lagoon and under no rainbow, but in some fat guy's hot bed, one after the other; a tumbling two, three, four at a time; one after the other again.

"Let's just say he went one pussy comment too far."

"Oh."

Peter resumed his affections with his cigarette, though an incomplete expression lingered on his face as he let the notion of Finbar's unimportant, grubby demise drip from the corner of his mouth. Something twanged in Tink, as if she were observing a foul habit of his, and without hesitation, out shot another Million.

Peter flinched violently. "Why do you keep doing that?" He hissed. People were starting to look their way.

Tink stared down at her plastic gun. "I just feel like it."

Peter snarled. "Well whatever. Just stop it. Are you gonna take the job?"

Tink made no response, and Peter snarled all the more, and shifted restlessly. The folded paper remained between them, slowly unfurling at its own accord.

"I keep thinking about Neverland." She announced eventually.

Peter shifted. "So, what's new?"

"You know I love you, Peter."But she couldn't even look at him.

Peter laughed hollowly. "I love you too hun. And I'm glad you've made something of yourself here; you got a good job, good colleagues. You should give yourself a break and have some fun. I'll give you a bonus for the job this time; you can get yourself out on the town, how about that?"

Tink smiled a little. "I've been thinking about Hook." That shiny cold steel alighted something in Tinkerbell, and as she drifted at a distance from those quaint memories, she relished those hard, brutally angular ones that gleamed wickedly, that in her mind sliced the sober concrete of the runway, ripped the grey metal birds right out of the sky. This was a thing that aspired to hurt Peter, to swing at him and thrash in his face; slice his waxy skin so that he couldn't ignore it.

"Then you should see someone."

"I see you, don't I?"

"I'm not what you need, Tink." Her heart screamed otherwise, but she knew this was about Peter not needing _her_, or the frivolous products of her oversized, overstuffed head. All Peter needed right now was someone to oversee the illegal transfer 50 kilos of cocaine in an otherwise off-limits compartment on the next plane from Cuba to California.

She shot at Peter again; the Million struck the corner of his mouth, and his face turned sullen. His teeth clenched. "Look it's not funny, Tink. _Stop_."

Tinkerbell laughed without smiling. The remarkable transformation of Peter's face warranted some kind of mirth. She looked over her shoulder, to where Peter's compassion had come to die. At those two miserable suits and that deadpan honey dripping between them, over which they flicked their insidious little mutters, as they waited like shadowy idols for Peter to finish up. In one movement, she swung her arm behind her and quickly fired again. The abrupt click of the toy elicited and jolt from a passing customer, who nearly dropped their tray.

"_Tink! Stop it_!" Fists hit the table, a brutal clatter, and suddenly he was flying up.

Tink stood, trembling, her small soft forearm, like a limp petal, clamped within a giant fist. That bone-breaking burst of noise that had so suddenly ripped apart the silence clamored through her, and her heart beat wildly like a trapped bird. And Peter's eyes were upon her, narrow and small and set within the sharp rifts of his decided, grown-up face. Her lips drew apart as the meaty contraption ensnaring her arm jolted, and she watched her stiff, sly faerie fingers shake with anger and fear, digging hatefully into the stale air, and felt the catch on her dolly arm scream as Peter threatened to pull it the other way. These weren't the skinny fingers that had bunched her up like a daisy and skippered her around when she was a stubborn faerie.

"_You. Little. Bitch_." Lower than a whisper, but venomous and razor sharp. And followed up with that enormous perpetual glare, rendering her winded. But still her fickle, flowery body shrieked; _Find your voice! Find your strength! Do not cry! Do NOT! _Tears gushed inside her like a stormy sea, and her heart continued to flap violently, because the male upon her was strong and _frightening_. Recalling her surroundings, Tink was sure that if she could move, she would see the little brown woman behind her, slipped delicately between the two thugs, gazing wryly at her spectacularly helpless, hanging _forme de fleurir _from her pretty button eyes.

"I'm not one of them." She croaked feebly around the lump in her throat. "Don't you dare treat me like you treat the other girls…"

"Is that Peter?" Came a fresh, shrill voice. Peter lowered his arm warily and released the girl, and with a precocious flourish Maxine Blake was on the scene.

She was built like a washboard with various bones and tits jutting out. Her cleavage was wide, exposing some elegant skeletal work beneath the sallow skin above her low cut top, as her modest breasts sloped softly a little way down her chest, indicating the absence of a bra. They were no despairing little balloons like Tink's, but free and pointy buds. Her top was white, ragged and perfect, missing her broad, elegant shoulders to reside unevenly against her rangy willowy arms. Down her gaunt legs slunk a pair of tracksuit bottoms that didn't go, and didn't need to. Hair scraped back after an ample morning blast in a narrow shower; blackened by the water; a blood red rose pinning it in place.

And Peter's strange strong hands were now all over her waist, and Tink watched as more cold flesh of that hard, shapeless, heartless thing was revealed; cheap cotton riding up; jutting hipbones rolling towards his crotch; she could almost hear the creaks of that mechanical bitch; the scrapes of the tracks she ran on.

"Looking sharp, Maxie." Beamed Peter, his voice dead with sincerity.

"Oh shut up you." She cackled sweetly. "I've got time to look like shit. I don't start work for another hour." She mock-struck him about the head, and he mock-slandered her some more about her get-up, and mock-hurt her with his dark, glittering hands.

"Business problem." She came to state. Her brown eyes flickered at him expectantly; Peter didn't need to confirm her prediction. She had already plunged her long knife into his business; twisted it and slithered down the gap, and now her lean frame was paddling the dirt, in which it was always ready to be."You got time for coffee, right?"

"Sure thing bitch." Peter smirked, and Maxine returned it and turned on her heel, before adding "You havin one, Tinkerbell?"

"Get her a big one." interjected Peter. "All she cares about is her stupid coffee." He grinned sweetly at Tinkerbell. "Caffeine Junkie Tink."

Tink shook silently, her arm still pulsating where it was nearly broken.

Peter came to perch on the table, watching sloppy, gangling sex-on-legs head towards the counter.

"She'd do it, you know." He muttered. "She's done it before. She's got a cousin in the business. Sure, bitch probably knows fuck all about my line of work, but she'll work her bony ass off playing her part right; and she'll do it well. She wouldn't get caught. The others would do it too; you know that? Francis, Wanda, Yulia... but I wouldn't trust those broads to get it right like Maxine. I wouldn't mind burning a bitch along the way, but I'd rather keep the merchandise from any sort of risk…and gain a _resourceful_ little tool as a bonus." He stole another glance at his barbed steel tool, who was now engaged in light conversation with a few other hostesses at the counter.

Tink lowered her eyes. "You wouldn't ask anyone else."

"Oh wouldn't I?" He snapped.

"No."

"No?"

"No!"

The outburst drew the attention of the girls at the counter, who rolled their eyes at each other and snickered. "Temper temper….what's got her panties in a twist…just Tink being Tink…" The titters were so damn predictable.

But still Tink found herself hot with fury, and she tugged at her skimpy dress in a feeble attempt to cover more of her fruity little thighs, shivering with the giggles of the cold base bitches at the counter, and the dark gazes of the attractive, bland associates behind.

At this point, said associates rose and strolled towards Peter, the woman draping hauntingly off her keeper, whom she followed dutifully a fraction behind, with the other gentleman bringing up the rear and occasionally ghosting a fat fingertip over the small of her back. The foremost man came close to whisper something in Peter's ear, upon hearing which Peter pursed his lips and nodded. Then, as his company headed towards the door, he resumed his attention to Tink.

"The coke'll get where it needs to be. Whether through this airport, or a whole new batch of bitches in a whole other city, or state, or country. Business moves on its own, whether we move with it or not. Valmont counts on me, but he also counts 200 or so other enforcers, should I get delayed, busted or shot. And if that happens, you'll get nothing. Ever. The guys wonder why I bother with you anyway, you're so damn difficult. They say I need to get my head out of the sand and realize you're not worth it. And you need to get your head out of your ass and realize this world's a fucking big place, and you're tiny, Tink."

Before he was done, Tink found herself holding the paper, eyeing it silently.

"Meet Fran at the _Hotel Nacional_ in Havana on Friday at 2 o'clock. He'll cover the expenses of your cab from the airport. I believe the 6:00pm flight on Thursday will get land you in Cuba for that morning, but hey, you're the hostess, so feel free to do your own thing. I'm late."

He turned, trench coat billowing from his broad shoulders as he strode towards the party at the counter, fobbed them off with some fleeting charm, swept up his coffee and left.

A dazed Tinkerbell barely noticed as the clouds scuttled back in on her. But she became aware of her caffeine headache, the trash talk floating in this rancid swamp of inadequate humans, and the raggedy bits of faerie feeding off the last of the Neverland phantoms in her mind.

No, she was inherently faerie. So damn faerie that it rapped at her to blithely serve stuffy humans on stuffy planes; to clip-clap like a solemn dog from one room to another; to feel the weight on her hips slowly accumulate, and her faerie head boil with unsaturated _need_.

It made her creamy legs quiver with every miserable step; it was crushing her.

Because faeries were not meant to suffer weight. They were made for skimming sunny currents of air and getting what they wanted.

Tink found herself too dried out and bitter to even cry, as her eyes rolled torpidly across the ill establishment and scraped with a bite of pain the scab of bitches at the counter, among whom Maxine hollered harshly "Your coffee's here", her contempt no longer sweetened by Peter's presence, if it ever had been in the first place. Tink knew those bitches would never stop hating her so long as she was her. She rarely spoke to or smiled at them, and what little she smiled was laced with venom, and what little she spoke made them hate her even more. But at that point it didn't matter, as she was sure she would never do either again.

Tink got to her feet shakily; her thoughts were such a foul swill of empty tedium, just like these big grey prisons to which her smaller winged grey prisons timelessly transferred her, day after day; night after night. Maybe she could pluck from her bloated hurt head some tidbit of the old times sweet enough to squeeze out a few tears. Or the throbbing aches of her unnatural selflessness would finally usher death.

Unnatural selflessness… no…love. That was the only trace of selflessness a faerie could ever know.

God knows she loved Peter so much; in every way, because a faerie couldn't hold back. His mother, his sister, his lover, his pet, his trinket, his sprinklet, his light. If she hadn't been all of those things, then she had damn well tried hard to be, because it was only in a faerie's frail, selfish nature to fall so hopelessly in love. And it was only in that same frail, selfish nature, to wither and ache like this when such was unrequited, when he left her here and barely even touched her. He had grown out of her.

And all the other girls…she wanted them all dead. The evil lingering between her faerie fingers was made for wicked shit like that…

…But she was tired. And tiny.

Headrush overcame her as she slipped the paper dutifully in her breast pocket, and she swayed a little before the blotches faded, tottering towards the door.

**Okay so the end was a let-down. I was so uninspired, but dying to get this up. I doubt anyone noticed, but this has a couple of references to Jackie Chan Adventures (Valmont and Finn), another beloved fandom of mine. It's a habit of mine to randomly reference other fandoms as background material in my fics, mainly because I suck at making up OCs.**

**Please let me know if I should carry on with this. If I do, it will be just a couple more chapters dealing with the transfer, etc, but I feel this might work nicely as a oneshot.**

**Please leave lots of lovely and/or constructive reviews. I've never written for this fandom before and I have no idea what to expect :)**


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